Disclaimer: Characters belong to Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. No copyright infringement intended. Any similarity to events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Author's Notes: In the middle of a multi-chapter Chuck mission fic at the moment but this little sequence kept popping up and wanted to be written in the meantime. And, apparently in the subfreezing temperatures I'm experiencing at the moment, I'm imagining warmer climes. Further, I'm not sure if the drink described below is any good or not... but it certainly sounds like it might be. Lastly, unbeta'ed. Apologies for any glaring problems.
Update: No longer a one-chapter story, by request. Thank you, ZebZ and Nick. :)
Spoilers/Time line: General/Second Season
Summer Breeze: Ellie's a wiz in the kitchen but finds herself struggling with a different kind of recipe and seeks the assistance of a surprising expert mixologist.
She stood, mesmerized by the selection of bottles. All different sizes, all different colors. The liquid within looked surprisingly similar, but the tastes, she was well aware, varied even greater than the containers. Which was why she was desperately trying to remember what the waitress had said the week before.
A variety of fruity liqueurs, two kinds of rum...
Was it spiced rum? Dark rum? Light rum? Maybe it was three kinds of rum...
She picked up a bottle with a hula girl on the label for a moment, reading about the flavor, the history of the brand.
She should really just call the restaurant and get them to give her the recipe now that she was at the store, but for some reason she'd rather stand there, looking lost, than actually pick up the phone and make the call.
With a sigh, she placed it back on the shelf.
The Summer Breeze was going to be perfect for her girls' gathering the next night while Devon went off on one of his adrenaline weekends with his frat brothers. If she could only remember what was in it.
She didn't bother glancing up when the door opened and a man entered, clearly on a purpose. He did so few things in life that weren't planned in advance. This particular afternoon, he had cleared twenty minutes expressly for the purpose of entering his usual liquor store, picking up a bottle of single malt, and leaving. He'd make it back to his apartment with enough time to change into his infernal green polo and khakis to make it to his second job.
Something made him glance over, however, on his way to the scotch aisle. He let out a barely audible grunt, one that seemed to ask the heavens: really?
He couldn't get away from a Bartowski, even on his liquor run.
He watched as she bit her lower lip, her fingers hesitantly reaching out to another bottle. For a brief second, a thought entered his head, that he should ask if she needed help, but he wasn't sure where it had come from. Shaking his head, to try to clear the thought, he continued on, determined to complete his mission and get out as quickly as possible.
But he heard her sigh, even two aisles away, and something wouldn't let him just leave.
Grabbing his bottle of Glenlivet, he moved back towards her slowly.
He watched, from a safe distance, as confusion crossed her features. She placed another bottle back on the shelf. "Ellie?"
She looked up, then over her shoulder as he slowly approached, surprised to see her neighbor, John Casey. "John, hey."
"How's it going?" he asked.
"Good," she said, though her face said otherwise. "You?"
He nodded slowly, then lowered his voice slightly, almost conspiratorially: "What are you trying to make?"
She looked up at him sheepishly. "Is it that obvious?"
He shrugged casually.
"I had this amazing drink last week, and I can't remember the recipe for the life of me."
"Where'd you have it? What was it?"
"It's an awfully girlie kind of drink," she admitted.
"Try me."
She looked up at him, at the honesty in his eyes. What did she have to lose? He could say no, and she'd be back to rummaging around her memories in the dark, or, maybe he could help her. "We had dinner at Mitch's, and they had this wonderful fruity drink that was... it was beautiful, too, called a Summer Breeze."
"You don't want spiced rum," he told her, his blue eyes surveying the options in front of her. He placed his bottle of scotch on an empty space on the shelf for a moment.
"Wh... what?" she asked, watching as he selected a bottle of dark rum, and a smaller bottle of coconut rum, presenting them to her. "How did you...?" She placed them in the shopping basket at her feet.
How could he tell her he moonlighted as a bartender more often than not? "Had to make money in college somehow," he lied. "Do you have grenadine?"
She mentally went through the bottles in the small bar she had at home. "Yeah."
He grabbed his scotch again, and led her down a few aisles, to the fruited liqueurs. "Banana and apricot," he told her, nodding in approval at the brand choices she made, adding them to her basket. "From the grocery store, you're going to want fresh oranges and lemons. And, for sweetness, honey. Saves you from making your own simple syrup."
"John, I had no idea you were such a mixologist."
He shrugged. "How many are you making the drink for? Just you and Devon?"
"Oh, no, I'm having some girlfriends over tomorrow. My friends from the hospital, Sarah. She said she and Chuck didn't have plans, so..."
He exhaled, imagining that he might have a house guest the next night if Chuck didn't have anywhere else to go. He couldn't worry about that at the moment, however. "I don't get off till ten, but if you're still awake, I can help you with a dry-run tonight."
"That would be awesome," she said, her eyes lighting up.
He fought to prevent the grunt that threatened to emerge at her use of her fiancé's favorite word. "No problem."
---
Ellie set out everything John had helped her purchase on the kitchen counter. She'd located her bottle of barely-used grenadine and added it to the grouping. She had half a dozen each of oranges and lemons, and a large bottle of honey. She'd placed a cutting board, a paring knife, juicer, measuring cup, shaker with strainer lid, jigger, and a pair of high ball glasses on the counter as well. The only thing she didn't have out was the ice, and that was only because she wasn't sure what time he'd be arriving.
Her fiancé, Devon, had already called it a night, having to get up super early the next morning to hit the road for his long weekend. Her brother, Chuck, was working the closing shift at the Buy More with John, so she imagined they'd both be showing up at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later.
She leaned against the counter at the sink, surveying her mixing station. She knew there was so much more to John than he ever let on, but she never, ever, would've imagined "bartender" was in his repertoire. He had such an imposing presence that she could definitely see him as a bouncer. She had a harder time imagining him behind the bar, taking orders and pouring drinks.
Hearing the key in the lock pulled her from her thoughts, and she smiled, moving towards the living room to greet them.
"I appreciate you walking me to the door, Casey, but I think I'm good now," Chuck said as he wandered in.
"It's okay, Chuck; I invited him."
Chuck looked at his sister, confused. "Come again?"
"I've got everything set up in here, John," she said, motioning to the kitchen.
Chuck craned his neck to see what, exactly, was going on.
"Your sister was having a crisis this afternoon," John explained.
Chuck followed his sister and his NSA handler into the kitchen, and noted the assortment of items on the counter. "Of the alcoholic variety?"
"Did you know that our John, here, was a bartender in college?" Ellie asked, patting John on the back.
Chuck waited for the inevitable growl from the trained killer, because John always growled and scowled whenever he tried anything like that. He was surprised when it never came. "Really?" Chuck asked, greeted by a threatening look from John. It took him a moment to try to discern what he'd done to be on the receiving end of that look, but then he remembered. He remembered seeing John behind a bar more often than not, in any number of insane getups, pouring all kinds of drinks. "Y'know, actually, I can kinda see that," he said, flashing a brilliant grin.
"Well, if you don't mind, Chuck, I'm sure John's had a very long day and he's being so kind to work though this recipe with me tonight, so if you would just scoot," she said, shooing her brother out of the kitchen.
"Uh... Yeah, okay, I guess," Chuck said, taking a step back into the dining room and around the corner, but only just.
"Where do we start?" Ellie asked.
John handed her the shaker. "Ice."
Chuck remained perfectly still, curious.
Ellie filled the shaker with ice and tried to give it back to him, but he shook his head. "But, I..."
"The key," John began, "is the proportions."
She nodded dutifully.
"Bartowski, if you're going to spy on us, you at least want to make yourself useful and take notes for your sister?" John asked, never bothering to look over. He just knew the Intersect was there, lingering in the darkness.
Ellie was surprised to see the guilt in her brother's eyes as he appeared in the doorway again.
Chuck cleared his throat. "Yeah, sure," he said, grabbing the notepad and pen that lived near the phone in the living room, before taking up a spot at the dining room table.
John continued. "Until you've had practice, you're going to need to measure to keep it straight. Eventually, you start being able to eye the amounts," he told her.
"All right..."
He reached over, and turned the jigger, so the smaller side was up. "One part dark rum."
Ellie took a slow breath as she uncapped the rum he'd selected for her, and carefully measured the proper amount. She glanced slightly at John, who nodded when she moved to pour it into the shaker.
"Half part, coconut rum."
She understood now why he'd given her the smaller bottle of the flavored rum. Proportionally, she wouldn't need as much. Again, she measured with surgical precision, adding it to the shaker.
"Half parts each of your liqueurs, too," he told her.
She measured the banana first and moved to pour it in when he touched her elbow. Her breath caught in her throat and she stopped. "What?"
He reached over, snagging the bottle of apricot and opened it, handing it to her. "All gets mixed up anyway," he told her.
She glanced up at him, but only briefly, before adding the apricot directly on top of the banana.
As she added it to the shaker, John grabbed a lemon and started rolling it on the counter top, applying slight pressure. With his free hand, he slid an orange her way, and she began rolling it on the counter as well. "You're going to want one part orange, half a part lemon."
She nodded, soon slicing her orange in half and manually juicing it into the measuring cup. Filling the jigger, she added it to the shaker, then started on his lemon.
Chuck glanced up from his note taking when he realized they were quiet. John stood, his arms folded across his chest, a few respectful steps back from her, his blue eyes taking in everything Ellie was doing.
She added the lemon to the shaker. "Now?"
John reached over, picking up the honey. "This is the hardest part," he told her.
She took the bottle as he offered it to her.
"You're going to have to eye this one. A quarter part honey."
She bit her lower lip as she uncapped the bottle. "I can't measure it?"
"It'll stick to the jigger, or a spoon. It's easier to just pour it directly into the shaker," he told her.
Exhaling, she took the shaker in one hand and raised the honey above it, slowly beginning to squeeze. The tiny stream flowed from the bottle, and she watched as it layered in on top of the ice. Suddenly, though, she wasn't sure how much she'd put in, or if it was the proper proportion.
John was watching her rather than the dripping honey. He saw the panic start to take to her eyes. "It's all right," he said. "Three more seconds." The corners of his mouth twitched into what might've been a smile while he watched her lips wordlessly count.
As soon as she hit three, she immediately stopped the honey.
"Now, shake."
Ellie placed the honey on the counter and found the lid to her shaker, securing it. "There isn't a trick to the shaking?"
He shrugged. "Just don't turn it upside down."
"No, I'm serious, there's no... no timing, no movement I should be trying to accomplish?"
John reached over, manually adjusting her grip on the shaker, making sure she kept a few fingers atop the lid. "Go to town," he told her softly.
She licked her lips nervously as she started to shake.
"It won't break," he assured her, nodding his approval as she shook it a little harder. He spotted the two glasses on the counter, and pulled a third glass from the cabinet. He'd been over for enough dinners he knew, relatively, where Ellie kept everything. Crossing to the freezer, he filled it with ice, then distributed the cubes more evenly among all the glasses.
"How do you know when it's done?" she asked.
"How certain are you that all the flavors have been adequately mixed?"
"I... I'm not," she said.
"Keep shaking," he told her, leaning against the counter.
"This isn't a time thing?" she asked.
He shrugged. "More of a gut instinct thing."
She stopped shaking suddenly. "Wait, what about the grenadine!"
"Guess we're done shaking," he said. "Put the shaker down for a second," he said, handing her the grenadine.
She instinctively reached for the jigger.
"Another eye-ball step," he said, nudging a glass towards her.
She looked up at him.
"The drink at the restaurant, there was a thin layer of color on the bottom of the glass, right?"
She nodded.
"Add a little grenadine to the bottom of each glass."
She unscrewed the lid and hesitantly poured a smidgen in the bottom of the first glass. She looked to John for guidance.
He didn't offer it, not outright. "Sure that was what the bottom of the glass looked like?"
She closed her eyes, remembering back, and added just a little more. Confident that was what she remembered, she added the same to the second glass, then the third, smiling at the thoughtfulness of including Chuck in the drink testing. She recapped the grenadine before taking the top off the strainer lid.
Carefully, Ellie strained a portion of the drink into each glass. She was beaming when she handed John a glass, realizing that it looked *exactly* like the drink she'd had the week before. "Chuck," she said, "come try this, too."
Getting up from the dining room, he joined the others in the kitchen and took the glass Ellie offered.
"Cheers," Ellie said, beaming, as she tapped her glass to both John's and Chuck's before all three of them took a drink. "Oh, my God," she murmured.
It was not Chuck's kind of drink, or even his alter ego Carmichael's. "It's... very fruity," he managed.
"Fresh, light. Just the right balance of sweet and tart," John commented.
"Just like the drink at Mitch's," Ellie said, astonished. "The girls are going to *love* this, John. Thank you," she said, placing a hand lightly on his arm.
"You're very welcome," he said before downing the rest of his drink in one gulp. "Do you need any help cleaning up?"
She shook her head. "I've got this. You've done more than enough. I really appreciate the help."
"It's no problem," he assured her.
"Let me walk you to the door," she said, taking his empty glass.
"It's not necessary, Ellie. Good luck mixing tomorrow, though if tonight is any indication, you won't need it."
"I'll take that as a high complement, from a former professional bartender."
John offered her a real, albeit brief, smile. "Good night, Ellie. Chuck."
Stay tuned...
Lines from the next installment:
"You don't want to go?" Off Sarah's half-hearted shrug, he continued: "Why'd you agree to it?"
"I didn't!" she said, moderately indignant. "Well, not exactly. Ellie was very persistent. She wouldn't take no for an answer."
Idly, John wondered what a terrorist might do under the interrogation of one Eleanor Faye Bartowski.